She's now been climbing for 2 years and 3 months. This year she's taller, stronger, and more confident in how it all works. Earlier in the October I think she was invited to come to practices with the Momentum Elite Team. I don't even know what it is called, but it is the team with the kids who are at nationals.
She said it was super helpful to have those extra intense practices and she really loved her workouts at the USA climbing headquarters in downtown Salt Lake. She thought it was pretty cool that they have these big barrels of cliff bars that anyone can eat. She liked the perks!
She LOVES her team and coaches. They have had a few sleepovers with the girls on the team. I am very impressed with how great the older girls on the team are with the younger ones. They are so cute and supportive.
At Regionals in Ogden she did very well and advanced to Divisionals in Denver. I believe there are 8 divisions in the US. Ours includes Colorado and is very competitive. She did great at Divisionals placing second. On the first day she topped all the boulders but fell one time. Each problem has three scores. Depending on how far you get on the boulder. So there is usually a 5, 10, 15, and 25 point hold. The max for each problem is 25. Each fall gets .01 deduction. So not much but it makes a difference. On the second day she flashed all and tied her teammate in the finals. Because of the tie, they looked at the scores from the first day to determine who was first and second. Simone was .01 behind her cute teammate Anna the day before so that determined that she was 2nd Place. Which is soooo good. We were excited for both of them to be heading to Nationals and to do so well in a competitive region.
We are sooo lucky we made to Divisionals. I was taking her since Jared was in Hawaii already. Hours before flying out with Simone and a teammate I found out our flight was cancelled. I quickly booked another flight but had three people trying to talk to me while I was doing it. When I got to the airport later that day I had trouble checking in and learned that I booked our flights from Denver to SLC instead of SLC to Denver. Everything was now booked for that night, and there were no early flights with room in the morning. So we tried to rent a car and drive. But BOTH routes were closed due to weather. One of her top teammates was stuck in Wyoming after the I-15 was closed. She never was able to make it to Divisionals, so sad! She would have qualified for nationals for sure.
I was freaking stressed. And Jared was relaxing in Hawaii, which made me feel a little resentful. Haha! But after a little freak out, we went back to the Delta counter and tried to figure out another way to get there. After a bit, three seats opened up to Colorado Springs! Yay! We made it by midnight.
The rest of the trip was so fun and such a breeze! The girls all ran around the hotel together and we walked to the gym around the corner. It was a lot of fun.
Travel days are always a little stressful and Nationals was no exception! It was our 23rd anniversary the day we were supposed to leave. I had a crapload of things I needed to get done that day. And I didn't want to stress about it because there are a lot of days like that, and it all works out. Usually. Just put one foot in front of the other and figure it out.
So I had to get housing for Elise in Provo (thought it was taken care of but the first place lost my check and now they were full) so I drove around Provo all morning, came home to go to Miles's game, then took Simone to climbing. I had a cold and was feeling exhausted and my ears were getting bad and I was getting vertigo. I got home and thought I had a couple hours to pack. Nope. I realized I never got my drivers license back after signing Elise's lease. So I drove back to Provo in the snowstorm thinking I'd need my license for my flight since my passport barely expired.
So I didn't make it. I knew coming home that I didn't have time to do it all. Plus I felt so crappy and exhausted and I knew flying would wreck my ears. So I came home and packed Simone and sent her with Jared. I was sad to miss out, but happy to be able to see Miles's two games and Monet's race and spend the weekend with Soren.
We loved watching Simone on the TV and were cheering for her every chance. She did sooooo great!
The first day in qualifiers she got 11th of 50. Top 20 made it to the Semi-finals.
In the Semi-final round she crushed it and got 4th out of 20. Top 10 made it to Finals.
In finals the boulders were sooo hard. She got 9th out of 10. Finishing 9th in the nation!
I'm so happy that Simone has found a passion that helps her to develop discipline and strength. She is so social and she has great friends and coaches and is in a supportive environment. She loves it and we are proud of her. I'm excited for her to do more outdoor climbing. I want to go too.
I'll give myself a little pat on the back too, because I have sacrificed a lot to get her where she needs to be everyday. Its not easy for me to be gone so much driving her around. But we are figuring out solutions and adjusting. I actually really like to drive. It helps that we have a car that is a dream in traffic. But I just turn up my music and I kinda enjoy it. I get to spend lots of time with Simoney too.
She was very excited to flash this route at Smith Rock near Bend. Her coaches took her here after Nationals and it was very cool. She was able to lead climb which means the rope isn't already hanging from the top, its attached to the climber, so you clip in at each anchor point. This particular route was hard because the anchor points are so far apart so if you fall, you fall far. She said at the end she had to dyno (jump) to the last move and she was so excited that she got it because she did NOT want to fall.
